OLD SCHOOL SAFETY

Monday, July 25, 2016

Some people are still stuck in the good ole days. What I mean by that is, once upon a time a person's word was a person's intregrity and if you asked for verification, it meant you didn't believe the person, and if you didn't believe the person, you are calling the person a liar. That old school mentality has to change and can take up to another generation or two, to come around to what is really needed for a due diligence defence to be effective.

Example, I recently had a situation with an individual, where I had to verify certain equipment was in place as per the regulations. Prior to the scheduled meeting, I believed I was going to find everything was in place, but as the safety coordinator, I am required by law to exercise my 'due diligence' by verifying and documenting that the equipment was in fact in place and in compliance. The individual I was dealing with, as professional as they appeared, turned out to have an old school mentality and had a really big chip on their shoulder for being made to display the equipment for verification, and they actually said, "I should have taken their word that they had all the equipment".

This clearly showed me that the individual I was dealing with did not have a real understanding of 'proof of due diligence.' The documentation I was writing up with details of their equipment, was my proof of "due diligence" or that I took 'reasonable care' by verifying and documenting that the equipment was in compliance, and I can't just make that up out of thin air, or by taking a person's word like the good ole day's.....